Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC PATCH 3/4] include/qemu/atomic.h: default to __atomic functions

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 25/01/2016 19:23, Alex Bennée wrote:
>>> +    })
>>> +
>>> +#define atomic_mb_set(ptr, i)   ((void)atomic_xchg(ptr, i))
>>> +#define atomic_mb_read(ptr)                             \
>>> +    ({                                                  \
>>> +    typeof(*ptr) _val;                                  \
>>> +     __atomic_load(ptr, &_val, __ATOMIC_ACQUIRE);       \
>>> +    _val;                                               \
>>> +    })
>>
>> Please leave these defined in terms of relaxed accesses and memory
>> barriers.
> 
> May I ask why? Doesn't the __ATOMIC_ACQUIRE ensure the load barrier is
> in place? Or should it be a fill CST barrier?

First, because they are defined like this in docs/atomics.txt. :)

Second, because the right definition would be
__atomic_load(__ATOMIC_SEQ_CST) and __atomic_store(__ATOMIC_SEQ_CST).
These produce even better code than the memory barriers on x86 but,
unfortunately, on POWER they are implemented in such a way that make
things very slow.

Basically, instead of

    mb_read -> load; rmb()
    mb_set -> wmb(); store(); mb()

POWER uses this:

    mb_read -> load; mb()
    mb_set -> wmb(); store(); mb()

There are reasons for these, and they are proved in
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/cppppc/popl079-batty.pdf (I'm not
pretending I understand this paper except inasmuch as it was necessary
to write docs/atomics.txt).  However, the cases that actually matter
basically never arise.  Again, this is documented in docs/atomics.txt
around line 90.

As an alternative to explicit memory barriers, you can use this on POWER:

   mb_read -> load-acquire
   mb_set -> store-release + mb()

and seq-cst load/store everywhere else.

Paolo